In the dispensing of hot soups, chili, stews and the like, particularly in institutional type food service environments where numerous and accurate individual servings of food must be made, a dispensing valve must have the requisites of toughness, accuracy, adjustability (such as for dinner, lunch and snack-sized portions or for adult and children's portions) and cleanability, i.e., such a valve must be simple in structure with ready access to all parts thereof to permit complete sterilization and cleaning to preclude bacteria and other harmful matter from remaining in the valve after a given duty cycle.
Furthermore, the valve should be equally versatile in the dispensing of broths, gravies, sauces, chunky soups, stews and the like.